Safe in His Arms (27 page)

“All right. All right, that’s good. Real good. Let me go see, Mandy, then I’ll help you out, okay, baby? Clean you up, okay? Sit here for me. That’s good, that’s good, just stay right there.”

He watched her slowly do what he’d said, not a sound out of her as she settled back down on the bar stool, her hands limp on the marble counter top. The smears of colour on them felt like a punch in the gut. She didn’t look up at him, but sat with her head down, her gaze far off and unfocused on her hands. He hoped it was unfocused.

“I tried to get away, first, you know? But he wasn’t going to allow that. I killed him. It wasn’t fast, Mac. I didn’t have the gun. I put him in a trash bag and tied him up with that”—she motioned to some thick yellow electric tape he’d not noticed before.

“Christ.” The word exploded from him before he could hold it back. Mac looked at her, unbelieving, for another moment, and turned for the basement door. She’d shut it, but he knew it was the basement door simply because of the smear of red on the door handle. He opened it and plunged down the stairs two at a time. He didn’t turn on the light so his first look in the feeble glow from the last of the sunset made him think Mandy had been mistaken. Then he saw the protruding legs, the dirty hands held down by the bright yellow tape she’d used to tie him up and drag him down here with.

“Christ,” he repeated, but this time the curse had no force at all—it emerged in a faint whisper. He rubbed his hands over his face and noticed with detachment that they shook.

Mandy had done this. She’d been alone, unprotected, probably terrified, but when push had come to shove, she’d done what she’d had to do. Was this one more sin to add to his growing list? A bloody machete lay next to the body and he squeezed his eyes shut on the image of Mandy using that to defend herself. How had he allowed this to happen?

“I did this, not you.”

He turned at the sound of her rough whisper to look up at her. The moon was behind her, haloing her head and leaving her face in shadow. She walked down a few steps until they were eye level. Her face broke into the light, revealing her serious expression. “Not you, Mac. Me. I would do the same again. If I was alone, without you here,” she went on in a steady voice, “I’d do it again if anyone else thinks to hurt me.” She reached up, touched his forehead, and dropped her arm. “Or you.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, he merely nodded. “We need to move. I found a place in the town we can stay until the team comes.”

She offered him a wan smile.

Inside he felt as if a part of him that he’d just got back was slipping out of his grasp. Mandy, he realised. Gathering his training around him, he nodded and ushered her back up the stairs. They cleaned the kitchen quietly. Mandy let him help her wash her arms and hands until her skin was pink from the scrubbing. All the while, she remained silent but he felt a rising tension between them, one he didn’t know how to ease.

Half an hour later, he was guiding her towards the truck and on to the town, where possibly more danger waited. He took her hand in his and she rested her head on his shoulder.

What had he done? He’d left her unguarded and vulnerable, and she’d prevailed.

Then why did he feel like he’d have hell to pay for this, his latest sin?

Chapter Twenty-Three

“We need a room. Quiet, private,” Mac told the front desk clerk. The place was a dive. Dingy, disgusting wallpaper curled down in the corners and parts of the yellowed print were completely missing from a section of wall over the window where the short, bald man nodded at Mac. He looked like a throwback from the eighties, complete with a long ponytail in the back of his head and a rock T-shirt pulled tight over his rounded gut.

“We got one. Gonna cost, though.” He stared up at Mac, then his shifty little eyes scanned Mandy.

Mac threw down a hundred dollar bill. “Double that if you can forget we are here.”

The guy blinked and snatched the money up. “Sure thing. Already getting fuzzy.” He reached under the counter and Mac tensed. The guy seemed oblivious to how tightly Mac had his hand on his gun hilt, though, because he handed over a key and nodded to the side. “Up those stairs, corner room, near the stairwell.”

“Side exit?”

“Yep, fire escape.” The guy grinned, revealing a few teeth stained brown. “Thought you might appreciate that.”

Mac put another hundred down.

The guy’s grin grew. “Anything at all, anything you just ask. Nico, that’s me. Just hit me up on the phone, quieter, right?”

She tried hard not to shudder at his eager expression, but as soon as Mac cupped a hand over her elbow and turned her to the hallway, she shivered.

“Disgusting doesn’t cover that man,” she whispered.

“Not even close. We have five hours tops.”

She stumbled on the carpet. “What?”

“That money bought us enough time for him to work up how much more money I probably have, and whether he wants to chance it. Five hours, six tops before he chances a call to try to get help taking more.”

She glanced back at the dingy entryway and back up at Mac. “Well, why give him that money then?”

“We need the time to clean up, shower, and get ready to go meet the team. West will get them all organised and here before that.”

“But we could go out and wait—”

“You need the rest.”

And there was the reason. He’d been in commando mode again. She knew she had spooked him with killing that disgusting man. She’d scared herself. The nightmares would be worth it, though, simply because she’d lived and he hadn’t. It had been close, yes, and scary but she didn’t blame Mac for leaving her in that kind of situation. Mac might think she did, but she didn’t. But his commando coldness had to stop. Sooner rather than later.

He pushed open the grimy half-broken door to the stairway and she followed him up. Two flights and he shoved open the third floor doorway and held it while she walked through. He grabbed her hand and manoeuvred her half behind him as they headed down the hallway. It smelt foul. Rotten sweat, cigarettes, and alcohol mixed in with the smell of ancient brown carpets. She wished for the house again, but she knew she’d never have been able to sleep there, not with a dead man in the basement. She swallowed down the revulsion at the memory.

“Here.” Mac used the key and opened the door, throwing his bag down and doing a quick scan of the room and bathroom. One bed filled half the room. A green and yellow bedspread that looked like they’d stolen it from the set of
The Brady Bunch
stretched tight over the low mattress. A small cheap plastic table, two white plastic chairs and a dresser with a television set made up the rest of the room.

Mac scowled but ushered her inside. “Not The Ritz, but it will do.”

“For what? I’m not sleeping.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and flipped the coverings off the bed. “We can always fuck.”

She glared at him.

“No?”

“Knock it off, Mac. If I can’t say let’s have sex, you can’t say let’s fuck.”

He frowned harder at that but his tight expression eased a bit. “Agreed.”

“Besides, I can’t—”

“Mandy, you can. Now, go strip down and hand over those clothes. I’ll wash them and you take a shower.”

Wash them? Where?
She looked around the small area and back at him.

He slumped down on the surprisingly white sheets and rubbed his face with his hand. He didn’t use his left arm, the hurt one, she noticed.

“We should check your bandage. And you should shower first.”

“Mandy, I’m not arguing with you over this. You need to shower. I know it, and you know it.”

“Mac, you’re being unreasonable.”

“Damn it.” He stood, towering over her, angrier than she’d ever seen him. “Why don’t you yell at me? Shout at me for what a bastard I am for leaving you unprotected?”

She blinked in surprise. “Mac, I don’t want to—”

Her calm voice seemed to anger him even more.

“Fuck, Mandy! You should be pissed off. You had to kill a man!
Kill him!
That’s my fault, mine,” he growled savagely and jerked into pacing the room. “It’s my fault, and you don’t even seem to get that. You act like—”

He paced closer and she grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Look here. You are not that fuckin’ great, okay? You’re not God. You’re not Superman and you can’t predict the future. Get that through your head. I killed a man because no one—and listen up, mister—no one is ever going to hurt me, or anyone I love again!”

He rocked back on his feet as if she’d slapped him. Looking incredulous, he smacked his own forehead and shook his head like she’d lost her mind.

“You just don’t get it, do you? You should never have been in that situation—”

“Oh, get over yourself. I don’t blame you. I don’t. Give me a break and stop. I did almost shoot my foot off. I forgot to go east and west. Heck, I curled up in a ball and prayed when the shooting started. So, I get it. I’m no use to you if they start shooting and you thought there would be more of them in town. I got it. I don’t blame you, Superman, I don’t.”

He breathed in and out for several long seconds, glaring at her the whole time like a man that wanted to toss her down and do things she just knew they weren’t ready to start, until, with a disgusted snort, he paced away from her to the window, back to the bed, and finally sat. “Fine. Whatever. I’m not getting into our first fight here. If we’re going to fight, we’re going to make up. And when we make up, I want long, slow make-up sex in a clean room.”

Her mouth fell open. She snapped it closed, opened it again, and instead of yelling at him, gave him the glare such screwed-up thinking deserved. “Look, I’m not so sure you’ll get make-up sex at the rate you’re going. Stop bossing me around. I’m not a child. You shower and I’ll eat a power bar.”

His eyebrows rose and his grin grew. Why did he have to look so sexy when he did that?

“Don’t do that! Do you know how hard this is? You’re so… So big and tough, so bad-ass I’m in charge that it’s hard enough to stand up to you, let alone deal with you ordering me around one minute and trying to screw me the next!” She huffed the last part and threw the pack at his head when he had the nerve to laugh.

He lunged off the bed and caught her in his arms, her back to his front, and pressed laughing kisses against her neck.

“Stop!”

“Sugar, I’m trying to, but you’re so damn cute, I can’t help it. Shit, you’ve got me, baby, don’t you get it? I’m trying my fucking best to protect you and get you out of here safe, and all I have to do is look at you and all my training goes south along with my blood supply. All I can think about is how soft and warm your pussy is around my cock and how sweet you orgasm in my arms.”

She tried to turn to glare at him. She really did, but the feel of him, his warmth, his hardness, simply eased parts of her that needed him. Needed him safe, whole, not angry, or hurting or worried, just safe. She relaxed into him and bent her head to the side to kiss his biceps.

“Mac, it’s going to be okay.”

He held her tighter, one big arm wrapped around her middle, the other right under her breasts making them bulge up. No doubt on purpose.

“Don’t you get it, Mandy? Five years I’ve been looking for you, missing you more than breathing and now, here you are, and we’re on the run from some kind of shit I can’t believe I got you into. I want to get you safe. Keep you safe, that’s all. And my brain knows this but my body is ready to steal any chance it can to be as deep inside you as possible. Every way possible, every space I can get I want to claim.”

Her temperature rose at his words and she shivered at the meaning. God, he’d never talked like this before.
Never.

“Get it?” he husked, right in her ear.

She swallowed and nodded.

“Good. Now unless you want me to bend your pretty head over the side of that bed and use your sweet mouth for something other than kissing, I suggest you get in the shower.”

Her legs went weak at the image of being on her stomach, her head over the edge as he pressed the rounded head of his cock into her mouth. She licked her lips. Would he pull her hair and hold her still while he shoved in and out?

“Mandy, that sounds good to you, sugar?”

She gathered her scattered thoughts and was about to test him when the phone he’d stolen buzzed. He dropped his arms, dug the phone out, and glanced at the display before answering, “Yeah.”

He listened, all the while keeping his hazel eyes pinned on her with a promise she wasn’t certain she could handle. After a few silent seconds, he nodded towards the shower and she retreated to the bathroom, shutting the door to the sound of him telling whoever was on the phone where they were.

She planted her hands on the bathroom pedestal sink and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked wild—and flushed with arousal. Her lips looked fuller, pinker to her. Her grey eyes bright against the additional sun she’d got. Mac had missed some of the dirt on her face and the swash of brown on her jaw reminded her of the red blood she’d washed off.

Suddenly she felt dirty. Dirty and sickened by what they’d done. Killed. The bathroom was clean. Shockingly clean. She even smelt lemon and bleach. Thankful to whoever the maid was, she turned the shower on and shoved the clear plastic curtain off to the side. Through the door, she could hear Mac talking, then silence. He didn’t come in, though, and she was suddenly shy for him to see her. He’d made love to her in the ocean, licked every inch of her, even her toes, but suddenly standing in a foreign room, she felt clumsy and unsure.